The paper examines the shifting interpretations of the Soba archeological site (medieval capital of the Nubian kingdom of Alwa) from an ethnographic perspective. Soba’s “past” is a place of memory and no memory at the same time for Soba’s “present” (a rapidly developing suburban area of Khartoum). For its relatively young and diverse population this site has generalny no emotional value, being rather a permanent spot of expansion or a sort of natural resource. Using the language of structural anthropology this spot is linked with binary oppositions: good-bad, clean-dirty, secured-dangerous, and inhabited-empty. At the same time for the old-established population, which has been cohabitating with antiquities permanently and for a long time, the “Soba past” has begun to speak. For them, archaeological traces are a kind of tool in the construction of identity, the preservation cultural values and can even being used in struggles for political expression. This presentation aims to discuss the very first findings of a research on the relations between an archaeological site and today’s population, how are social and historical spaces being “produced” and re-used for group formation within urban setting?

Soba Past versus Soba Present. Identity, History and Memory in Suburban Area of Khartoum